Summary:
Features include a viscid, gray brown cap with dark granular scales or radiating fibrils, decurrent, narrow, white gills, and a viscid stem that is whitish flushed with the cap color and has some dark gray dots on its upper part. Breitenbach(3) says that Hygrophorus tephroleucus is difficult to interpret, is similar to Hygrophorus pustulatus (Fr.) Fr., and is considered by Melot 1981 to be a synonym of H. pustulatus.

Cap:
2-4.5cm across, convex, at times papillate, margin inrolled when young, becoming flat, arched at maturity; 'ashy with a darker brownish disc (near "buffy brown")'; viscid, glutinous when wet, somewhat virgate [radially streaked] with radiating fibrils, opaque, margin cottony at first, (Hesler), 2-5cm across, convex with depressed center, margin inrolled becoming arched; gray-brown with darker disc; "sticky, glutinous when wet, with dark granular scales, especially in the center", (Phillips), 3-5(6)cm across, convex; gray to grayish brown, "entirely covered with small blackish brown granules partly disappearing with age and after rain", (Hansen), up to 6cm, convex then flat; +/- bister beige, spotted dirty brownish all over, margin lighter, (Courtecuisse)

Flesh:
soft, rather thin; white, (Hesler), soft, quite thin; white, (Phillips), white or grayish (Courtecuisse)

Gills:
"somewhat decurrent, bluntly adnate, close to subdistant", becoming narrow (0.4-0.5cm); white, (Hesler), ''decurrent, bluntly adnate, close to subdistant, narrow; white'', (Phillips), arched, subdecurrent; white, (Courtecuisse)

Stem:
6-9cm x 0.5-0.8cm, equal or widening slightly downward, solid or stuffed at the top; whitish; lower part subviscid to viscid from remnants of thin, gelatinous universal veil, upper part dry and covered by dark-gray punctate points, (Hesler), 4-8cm x 0.3-0.8cm, slightly enlarged in lower part, solid or stuffed at top; ''whitish flushed with cap color; lower section sticky from remnants of gelatinous universal veil, elsewhere dry with some dark gray pits'', (Phillips), white with minute fuscous squamules especially in upper part, (Hansen), up to 8cm long and 1cm wide; whitish, entirely spotted dark gray, (Courtecuisse)

Odor:
not distinctive (Hesler, Phillips)

Taste:
not distinctive (Hesler, Phillips)

Microscopic spores:
spores 7-9 x 4-5 microns, elliptic, smooth, inamyloid; basidia 2-spored and 4-spored, 46-61 x 6-8 microns; pleurocystidia and cheilocystidia absent; gill tissue divergent; clamp connections present on cuticular hyphae, (Hesler), 7.5-9.5 x 4.5-5.5 microns, elliptic to oval, smooth, (Phillips), 7-10 x 4-5 microns, (Hansen)

Spore deposit:
white (Phillips)

Notes:
Hesler(1) examined collections from WA, ID, CA, CO, MI, WY, and Denmark. There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia. The University of Washington has collections from WA, CA, and AK. It was reported by Kernaghan(1) from AB and by Bird & Grund (in Kernaghan) from NS. It was reported by Breitenbach(3) for Switzerland.

EDIBILITY

yes (Phillips)